Why the ‘Phantom Thread’ 70mm Screenings Are a Unique Experiment That Could Look Significantly DifferentHow will the film's grainy 35mm images look blown up to a much larger format? Paul Thomas Anderson's experiment with film projection continues apace.

What’s notable here is the reason Anderson needed to push the stock, similar to what Lachman does when he shoots 35mm, and why today so many filmmakers are now reaching for 16mm: It’s because of how grainless Kodak 35mm stocks have become. In a digital age, the Kodak stock has gotten “too good” – too clean, too grainless – for filmmakers who specifically are reaching for the organic texture of film versus the video sharpness. For these filmmakers, 16mm is an great option to use on an intimate film like “Mother” or “Carol,” but it’s too small a format – lacking detail in wide shots – for a film with scope and landscape like “Mudbound,” which tested 16mm, but went in a different direction. While Anderson’s films have gotten increasingly intimate and smaller in scope, he is also filmmaker who craves detail and depth in his images, so 16mm would likely never be a viable option for him.